Why is my Galaxy S4 Battery Discharging quickly?

[mysteriouskat]

My Galaxy S4 Battery Discharges Crazy Quick, tried everything

This is my first Android and it's great -- EXCEPT the battery drain.

I tried everything. Bought a new battery, removed SD card, power savings on, lowered screen brightness, etc -- nothing.

Only thing I noticed if I have it on airplane mode, it's solid...but otherwise it drains like crazy. Battery is usually nearly gone by mid day with moderate use.

Please help!

PS. I have a Macbook, so backups are tricky as I can't get the Android File Transfer app to work, and doing via wifi has been a real pain.

 

[B. Diddy]

Re: My Galaxy S4 Battery Discharges Crazy Quick, tried everything

Welcome to Android Central! How's your cell signal in general? Poor signal is a big cause of battery drain.

Charge up to 100%, then let it drain to 20-30% with normal usage, without charging in between. Then show us:

1. The main Settings>Battery screen.
2. The fullscreen battery graph screen (which shows Awake time and Cell Signal Strength).
3. The Screen category (to see total Screen On time).
4. The Cell Standby category, if present (to see Time Without Signal).

http://forums.androidcentral.com/am...ide-how-post-screenshots-android-central.html

 

[mysteriouskat]

Re: My Galaxy S4 Battery Discharges Crazy Quick, tried everything

I was having some issues with screen capturing, but here's what I've got. Reception is generally good, I think. I feel like it's pretty data hungry though -- but I've switched from a Blackberry which is very thrifty...

 

[B. Diddy]

Re: My Galaxy S4 Battery Discharges Crazy Quick, tried everything

Those two screenshots don't correlate to the same usage. The one on the left shows you've been on battery for 8 hrs, and the GSam screen on the right shows you've been on for only 3 hours. It's best to take screenshots at the same time, so that the usage figures are consistent.

Also, tap on the graph part of the left screen to get the fullscreen graph, and show us that screenshot.

 

[mysteriouskat]

Re: My Galaxy S4 Battery Discharges Crazy Quick, tried everything

I will have to restart the whole thing (I ran out of battery very quickly after I took those). I took the two screenshots around the same time, it just took me that long to get the screen capture to work in between them and the discharge happened that fast. The GSam one was taken 2nd. But within minutes from each other... so one of them must be wrong, I'm guessing it's not the GSam one...

 

[jonny911]

Re: My Galaxy S4 Battery Discharges Crazy Quick, tried everything

Do you know the greenify app?
If it's not a hardware fault, then maybe it could help you increasing your battery life...!
https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...ails?id=com.oasisfeng.greenify&token=tnvt2-IP

 

[mysteriouskat]

Re: My Galaxy S4 Battery Discharges Crazy Quick, tried everything

I've done a full wipe of the device last night, which didn't solve the issue - but was quite a hassle to get the device back to how it was...so I deeply regret doing it since it didn't help. Will post new screenshots today once I hit 30%, which should be very soon.

 

[mysteriouskat]

Re: My Galaxy S4 Battery Discharges Crazy Quick, tried everything

I downloaded Greenify...not sure if it's helping, I don't seem to have a lot of apps that can hibernate... but worth a try.

 

[mysteriouskat]

Here are the updated screenshots:

 

[B. Diddy]

I'm sorry, but GSam is not corresponding with the system's battery stats. I think it's because you had a couple of reboots, and GSam resets the stats with a reboot. GSam says you've used 2:22 of battery, but the system says 5:17.

Instead of showing us the GSam screen, go back to my initial response and show us those screens. Sorry!

 

[mysteriouskat]

 

[B. Diddy]

So you're on track for about 4.5 hrs of total screen-on time for an entire charge, which isn't great, but it also isn't that horrible for an S4, from what I understand. Your overall cell signal seems decent, so that's probably not a factor.

Do you happen to know what kind of total screen-on time you were getting before?

 

[mysteriouskat]

This is for very minimal usage... I checked email a few times, did some browsing, twitter, and FB. No videos. If I do a more intense usage it runs out faster. If I'm at 100%, I tend to go down to 90% within 10-15 mins of usage.

 

[B. Diddy]

Almost 3.5 hours of screen-on time is not trivial, though--that suggests you do use your phone pretty often.

Have you tried booting into Safe Mode? This temporarily disables all 3rd party apps. If you can do without the apps you installed yourself for about a day, see how the phone runs in Safe Mode. You should still be able to do things like watch videos. If the battery doesn't run down as fast, then something you installed is presumably contributing to the faster drain--but it can be difficult to pinpoint which app. Steps for Safe Mode are at the end of this article: Reset: Samsung Galaxy S 4 | T-Mobile Support

 

[mysteriouskat]

I've tried safe mode. It slowed down drain, but only slightly -- and largely because I wasn't using any apps beyond the browser....

 

[B. Diddy]

Sorry, I'm starting to run out of suggestions. You mentioned you tried a new battery--was it a genuine Samsung OEM battery, or a 3rd party one? 3rd party batteries aren't always reliable. I'd try one more battery if you can. You probably don't have to buy one--see if maybe you can swap batteries with a friend who also has an S4.

Otherwise, it may be that your unit is defective. How new is it? If it's pretty new, you may not want to waste much more time, and contact your wireless store or Samsung for a possible replacement.

 

[mysteriouskat]

I've tried it on the older battery, and the newer one (which is supposed to be genuine, but I did buy it on ebay).

The unit isn't brand new -- I bought it from someone. So maybe it is defective...although everything else seems fine and the seller said that it lasts him a full day with relatively high usage...

I'm surprised that screen takes up so much.

 

[B. Diddy]

If you use the phone heavily, the screen will always be the top battery user, because it takes power to keep that thing on.